Pumpkin Day

A wind whips through your hair
Bringing the smell of dry leaves to your nose
You open your eyes and the world is on fire with color
Red
Orange
Yellow
Bits of color drift slowly down in a soft dance
Only to be whipped back up again into to sky
You go to the pumpkins growing in the garden
Their orange glow radiates warmth
An acorn drops from the sky and hits you on the head
You look up into the branches of the old oak
In its twisted branches sits a squirrel
The squirrel chatters at you
As if it is your fault for standing under the tree in the first place
You move on
Past the annoyed squirrel
Past the glowing pumpkins
Past the dancing leaves
To the place where pumpkins have faces
Happy, sad, mischievous, and angry
They sit in a row
You smile at them
And remember when you made them
You remember plunging your hands into there cold gooey depths
Then carving their features into the hard exterior
You remember
Setting them on this hill of dying grass
Right now the pumpkins are sleeping
You sit down and wait on the shell of a fallen tree
Wait for the pumpkins to wake up
A lone animal calls out lost somewhere in the forest
You shove your hands deeper in your pockets as the cold bites at your fingers
The sun slowly sets and one by one the pumpkins wake